History of the Celestial Empire
The Celestial Empire of the Golden Dragon (CEGD) is one of the largest and most powerful nations on Earth, with numerous interstellar holdings across both the Home Systems and the area known as Imperial Space. The Empire traces its origins back to both the People's Republic of China and to a number of smaller nations which have long since been absorbed into the Empire. Most historians date the founding of the Empire to end of the Chinese Civil War in 2173 but some point to earlier event where China began dominating its neighbours. 21st Century - Burmese Collapse. In the mid-21st century Burma began experiencing a major population boom. Between 2045 and 2055 the population increased from sixty five million to seventy three, increasing the strain on an already overstretched national infrastructure. In 2054 food shortages combined with a series of typhoons and a malaria outbreak resulted in over ten thousand deaths, mostly in the rural areas. In 2058 the government in Yangon (Rangoon) announced a multi-billion dollar project to rebuild the national infrastructure including over a thousand kilometres of roads, new hospitals and schools, and a major restructuring of both the petro-chemical industry and the countries agricultural system. These projects would be partially funded by loans from several countries including India, Russia, and the Western European Union as well as a number of multi-national corporations. These loans would be secured using Burma's oil reserves. The 2060's, however, saw the rise of fusion power and the subsequent drop in oil prices wiping out Rangoon's main source of income. At the same time it was discovered that huge amount of money earmarked for development programmes had been stolen by both government officials and the heads of the companies contracted to carry out the work (often the two were one and the same). An estimated four hundred and fifty million dollars had simply disappeared from government banks and ten of millions more had been used in bribes and backhanders. Burma suddenly found itself unable to either continue with its projects or even begin to pay back to interest its loans. In 2064 the previous government was overthrown by a popular revolt and the new government attempted to renegotiate its payments but was unable to come to any agreement with any of its creditors except India. In 2065 Burma was close to bankruptcy when China offered to help. For many decade China and India had been rivals, competing against one another for access to the resources of Africa. India had on several occassions harrassed ships bound to and from China, stopping them in international waters to carry out "safety inspections" which often ended with the vessel forced to make a detour to India for "neccessary repairs" which delayed shipping and costing China millions every year. The People's Liberation Armies Navy (PLAN) lacked sufficiet resources to maintain a long term presence in the Indian Ocean to counter this tactic (or mount similar operations of its own), and desperately needed a deep water base in the Indian Ocean. An earlier plan to lease a base from Pakistan had collapsed in the 2030's when Islamic hardliners had gained control of the Pakistani parliment and ordered all foreign troops out of the country. Burma, desperate for funding and political support, was more than willing to lease China a large base on its coast. In exchange China agreed to buy up a large chunk of Burma's debts whilst at the same time a number of trading agreements which favoured China were signed. Chinese businesses began buying up large numbers of Burmese companies and using them as a front to sell Chinese made goods to the west, bypassing a number of embargos placed on China following it's attempts to gain control of Korea during that countries unification process. Within a decade Beijing was acting as the unofficial ruler of Burma. 22nd Century - Controlling Access to Space When FTL travel was first developed it was limited to those countries which had funded it - China, the UC, and the WEU, although eventually the technology was shared with Russia and the USA. The only hope citizens of other countries had of making it off world was to emigrate to one of those nations and apply for a chance to join their colonisation programmes. China, with a population of over a billion, was not in short supply of candidates of its own although Burma was invited to send a small delegation, for a cost. The nuclear exchange of 2116 changed the exisiting plans for a slow colonisation of Gaia. United Nations projections showed that as much as 80% of humanity could die as a result of the fallout and climate change produced by the war and the concensus was that humanities only real hope of survival was to move as many people off-world as quickly as possible. Category:Background